10 Films Your Family Can Look Forward to in 2018!

Avengers: Infinity War must be the most anticipated film this year. It is to be the sequel to 2012's The Avengers and 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. It takes place four years after the events of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when the Avengers have been torn apart following the events of Captain America: Civil War. Thanos arrives on Earth to collect the Infinity Stones for a gauntlet that will allow him to bend reality to his will and the Avengers must join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy to stop him before his onslaught of destruction puts an end to the universe.   

After the demise of the Jurassic World theme park on Isla Nublar, the dinosaurs roam freely on the island for four years until a volcanic eruption threatens their existence. Claire Dearing, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, the former park manager, has now founded the Dinosaur Protection Group, an organization dedicated to saving the dinosaurs. She recruits Owen Grady, played by Chris Pratt, a former dinosaur trainer who worked at the park, to help her rescue the remaining dinosaurs from the island. Owen also attempts to locate Blue, the last remaining of the four raptors he trained, but he and Claire discover a conspiracy that endangers both humanity and the dinosaurs.

Earlier this month, Warner Brothers released two photos from Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. In the above photo, we can see Newt being piqued by a postcard from Paris, France, suggesting that the film could take place in the City of Light.

The film will see the return of stars Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudal and Ezra Miller. We already know that Johnny Depp will play the titular villain Gellert Grindelwald. Lesser known is that Jude Law will be portraying a young Albus Dumbledore.  

What stands out from this new iteration of Spider-Man is that it is not only the first animation film of Spiderman but that it will not feature the usual Peter Parker as Spiderman. Instead, it will be the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, following the journey of how Morales come to take on the mantle of Spiderman.
 

Morales is an Afro-Latino and this will be the first time a non-white person has played Spiderman on film. Jamaican-American actor and rapper Shameik Moore will voice Spiderman, while Liev Schreiber will voice a yet undisclosed main villain. While Peter Parker is not the main hero, he will nevertheless still make an important appearance, playing a middle-aged mentor to Morales. It will be a side to Peter Parker that we have never seen portrayed before, animation or live-action. That's a few things to be excited about for Spiderman fans.

It has been more than 10 years since the first Incredibles movie. When the teaser trailer above was released in November last year, according to Entertainment Weekly, it became the most viewed trailer for an animated film in the first 24 hours with 113 million views. Not that it's any surprise as the first film was one of the best animation films from Pixar. Throughout the years, the director Brad Bird has been quizzed if there would be a followup and he has always reiterated his desire to do a sequel but was waiting for the right ideas to cohere. And it seems that they finally have. 

Jason Mamoa was probably the best thing in the Justice League film. Not many details are known about the film at this point, except that Arthur Curry learns that he is the heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, and must step forward to lead his people and to be a hero to the world.

James Wan directs. Amber Heard plays Mera, a warrior of Atlantis, who was raised by Queen Atlanna, Arthur Curry's mother, who is played by Nicole Kidman. Patrick Wilson plays the film's antagonist, Ocean Master, Arthur Curry's half-brother. 

It's the first Transformer movie not to be directed by Michael Bay. Instead, Bumblebee, who is one of the most loved of all the Autobots, will be helmed by Travis Knight who has a starry background in animation, having directed Kubo and the Two Strings, a kind of stop-motion samurai epic. So we're expecting great action set pieces and a sense of humour that is often missing in the Transformers franchise.

It's also the first Transformer film to star a lead female character. In the film, Charlie Watson, played by Hailee Steinfeld, discovers Bumblebee in a small California beach town junkyard where Bumblebee is taking refuge. She, of course, will learn that no ordinary Volkswagen Beetle. 

None of Michael Bay's Transformers films, maybe except the first one, has been critically well received. In fact, they are seen by some quarters in the film world as exemplifying the worst of modern commercial Hollywood filmmaking. Will Bumblebee reverse that trend?

Ant-Man and the Wasp is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War. Scott Lang tries to balance his home life as a father with his responsibilities as Ant-Man, when Hope van Dyne, played by Evangeline Lilly of Lost fame and Hank Pym present him with a new mission to bring to light secrets from their past, requiring him to team up with Hope van Dyne as the new Wasp. In a year of firsts for Marvel (first African-American lead in Black Panther and first Afro-Latino lead in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse), this will be the first time a Marvel movie features a female superhero in the title. 

Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, the film is about a young girl who finds a Nutcracker doll among the family's gifts and is charged by her parents to take special care of it. It's studded with stars such as Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman and, judging from the trailer, promises to be a fantastical adventure.  

What's most exciting about the upcoming Dr. Seuss animated classic, whose story we all know is that of how the Grinch plots to ruin Christmas for the residents of his neighboring village of Whoville, is that voicing the eponymous Grinch will be Benedict Cumberbatch. That alone is enough reason to watch the film.